Column: Lynn Osmond steers the Chicago Architecture Center through turbulent waters
No need to hit a jazz club or Second City if you’re hungry for some improv. Thanks to COVID-19, there is plenty of improvisation going on at the Chicago Architecture Center, the nonprofit best known for its architecture tours.
Consider the center’s popular Chicago River cruise, a 90-minute, docent-led tour that glides by iconic skyscrapers. It used to run seven days a week, 250 people per boat. Now, with tourist traffic down, that’s been cut to 3 1/4 u00bd and crowds are limited to 90. Because tickets go for an average of $48 apiece, that means a lot less revenue.
“Some Saturdays we’re selling out. And then on a Sunday, we’re going out with a boat that’s a quarter full. It’s random,” Lynn Osmond, the center’s longtime president and CEO, said in a recent interview.
In 2018, when Osmond opened the center’s sparkling new home at 111 E. Wacker Drive, with its towering skyscraper models, it marked the fulfillment of years of planning and fundraising — and promised a future of limitless possibilities. All that changed in mid-March when the center shut down for an unanticipated, nearly 3 1/4 u00bd-month hiatus.
